


Happy Hour

by Liadt



Category: Callan (TV)
Genre: Gen, Moan-y Lonely - you have been warned, on holiday sort of, random ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:52:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1805953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liadt/pseuds/Liadt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lonely doesn’t travel well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Hour

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before reading ‘Death and Bright Water‘, where Lonely goes abroad and quite enjoys it! 
> 
> The ending is a tad random.

It was a glorious, sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. The azure blue sea lapped at the soft, yellow sand of the beach. It was hot, but not insufferably so.

“Cheer up, old son,” said Callan, leaning against the counter of a beachside bar. Lonely frowned, as he took the bright paper umbrella out of his cocktail and tried to surreptitiously hide it under an ashtray. 

Why had Mr Callan taken him here? He knew it was for a job, of course, it always was. Mr Callan knew he hated foreigners and being away from London was too much. Too bleeding much. “Couldn’t you have found someone else? I don’t like this place,” whined Lonely.

“Anybody else would be ecstatic if they were whisked off on a free trip. It’s too late to back out and it’s a nice easy job. I’ll deal with any heavy stuff, while you crack a couple of safes. The only difference to a job back home is the climate.”

“It’s the grub; foreign muck doesn’t agree with me.”

“I bought you a fry up.”

Lonely grimaced. Some sort of streaky meat that was allegedly bacon and unnaturally red sausages didn’t fit his idea of a full English breakfast. He was afraid to try the tomatoes after last night, at the hotel buffet. What Lonely had taken to be green beans turned out, on eating, to be spicy green chillies. “It didn’t taste like a full English. If the grub’s not hot it’s vinegary.”

Callan wasn’t sympathetic. “You like vinegar don’t you? You put enough on your chips. Drink up and start smiling.”

Lonely took a small sip of his cocktail. He wasn’t keen on that either; drink should taste like drink and not fruit juice. The bright colour was off putting too - he preferred his alcohol to look like the walls of a boozer, in indiscriminate shades of brown.

“Blimey, mate, you really are no fun. What about those birds over there, surely they must perk you up?”

Leaning against the side of a wall was a small group of young women. They were dressed in tiny shorts and bikini tops revealing their lean, tanned bodies. Callan waved in their general direction and they giggled and whispered in response to the attention. 

“Bet they’re laughing at us for being foreign,” muttered Lonely.

“Would you be so paranoid if they were British? Your brain’s overheating. Take your cap off, it’s ridiculous in this heat.”

Lonely complied, scowling for the nth time since arriving. He felt exposed with out his cap.

“That’s better,” said Callan, putting an arm around him cheerfully. “Reminds me of a song I used to sing going from the pub to the barracks.”

Oh Gawd, thought Lonely, he’s drunk and threatening to sing. He’s never normally this happy - it must be the foreign drink. Last time he was this plastered was when he broke up with a bird. Callan became careless when he was upset in that way. He’d ended up in nick after a bird broke up with him. If Callan was going to drag him on a loony, booze fuelled adventure he was off, mate or no mate. Lonely shivered at the thought of disobeying Mr Callan, but he’d rather not end up banged up in some funny, foreign place. He’d read about them - torture and twenty to a cell with only cockroaches to eat.

Looking away from Mr Callan, Lonely spotted an elegant figure coming down the seafront. The man was dressed in a power blue shirt and chinos. Lonely leaned back towards Callan. Callan pushed him back as he breathed in the full force of vintage Lonely. “Jesus, what’s set you off?”

Lonely pointed nervously at the man, over Callan’s shoulder. 

Callan turned on his stool to look - the man was Toby Meres. “Oh,” he said, all cheer gone from his voice. “All right, you can scarper.”

“Thank you, Mr Callan.”

“Meet me back at the hotel,” shouted Callan, at the retreating thief’s back.

“Hello, David, dear boy. I’m surprised you brought Lonely with you. Can you afford to keep him in quarantine when we return?”

“Hello, Meres, you’re early,” said Callan, gruffly.

“Hardly. It would appear I’m too late.” Meres eyed the row of empty glasses and clicked his fingers. “Waiter, two coffees, please. I’ve brought a file for you, Charlie insisted you read it. I asked him why bother, David would think I was forwarding candidates from a dating agency.”

Callan gave Meres an angry glance and took the file off him, more aggressively than necessary.

“Remember: it's easy to make mistakes if you don't keep calm,” said Meres, amused. Winding up Callan was always fun, even if it didn't work most of the time.

“Just because I have a conscience about who I’m sent to kill doesn’t mean I’ll fall for them. Don’t you ever get fed up of obeying blindly? Oh, I forget you’re a proper little psychopath aren’t you?”

Meres smirked. “Snell has diagnosed me as completely normal.”

Callan grunted in reply, he didn’t think the cold, clinical Snell was the best judge of character.


End file.
